The Seleucid town of Nysa-Scythopolis on Tell Iẓṭabba (Israel) was destroyed by the Hasmoneans at the end of the second century BC. In this article, we discuss the exact season and possible year of the destruction using a multimodal approach and argue for its destruction in spring/early summer 107 BC.

Baumard's perspective asserts that “opportunity is the mother of innovation,” in contrast to the adage ascribing this role to necessity. Drawing on behavioral ecology and cognition, we propose that both extremes – affluence and scarcity – can drive innovation. We suggest that the types of innovations at these two extremes differ and that both rely on mechanisms operating on different time scales.

Kelvin probe force microscopy was used for extraction of the threshold and the pinch off voltages in organic thin film transistors. The first was determined by direct detection of the charge accumulation onset and the latter by a direct observation of the pinch off region formation. In addition, an effective threshold voltage shift can be extracted from the pinch-off voltage as a function of charge concentration. The dependence of the effective threshold voltage on the gate voltage must be considered when calculating charge carrier concentrations in organic thin film transistors.